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W.W. Law archive in limbo as county holds onto tax funding

Savannah Morning News file photo

Civil rights leader W.W. Law owned thousands of artifacts that are still in need of a permanent home.

Almost 10 years since voters approved financing a research and preservation center with sales tax money, supporters are still trying to find a permanent home for artifacts that once belonged to civil rights leader Westley Wallace Law.

About $400,000 of special purpose local option sales tax revenue has since been spent to archive materials Law collected prior to his death in 2002, but the collection — comprised of newspapers, documents, books and artwork — remains boxed up, out of the public’s reach.

The remaining $508,000 approved for the project has been held in limbo since the Chatham County Commission cut off funding in 2007 due to concerns about how disbursements were being spent.

Savannah and county officials have been working with the owner of the materials, the W.W. Law Foundation, to find a permanent place to store them that is accessible to the public. So far, those efforts have been unsuccessful.

In the meantime, Savannah is allowing the foundation to store the materials in a city-owned building at 226 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., across from the Savannah Civic Center, where the collection has been held since 2006.

The tax funding was the foundation’s main source of revenue, although the annual Lawfest fundraiser, scheduled for next month, assists in covering overhead costs at the facility, said Remer Pendergraph, Law foundation founder and board chairman.

Between $3,000 and $10,000 has been raised during past events to cover phone, computer and accounting expenses, Pendergraph said, adding that the organization is staffed solely by volunteers.

The county stopped distributing tax funds to the foundation after county auditors cited concerns following a review of the project. Concerns included the payment of almost $60,000 to Pendergraph for services rendered as curator, while he served as the board’s chairman and administrator of the archival contract.

There had also been concerns about an open-ended deal with an archivist that did not specify the amount of pay he would receive or what he would accomplish, said County Attorney Jon Hart.

“That’s kind of why we put the brakes on the deal,” Hart said.

The county also had doubts about the foundation’s ability to support permanent housing for the collection and a planned electronic archival retrieval system because the organization had no source of recurring revenue.

In a 2005 report, Pendergraph projected a total cost of $2.7 million for the construction of a facility, as well as the archival retrieval system that was supposed to be paid for using the tax funds.

The remaining $1.7 million was to be raised through grants and a “capital endowment campaign.” Auditors questioned what would become of the cultural resource if the project did not come to fruition.

Another concern regarding the ownership of the collection appears to have been resolved.

The county required that Pendergraph, who was the trustee of the collection, transfer ownership of the materials to the foundation, before any further funding would be provided — a transfer that occurred in 2010.

Pendergraph denied on Monday that any of the expenses were inappropriate. In a 2008 memo, he said that his “unique expertise” as a confidant of Law justified the compensation.

In a July 8, 2009, letter to then-Mayor Otis Johnson, Pendergraph wrote that the $400,000 in SPLOST funds had been used in conjunction with a $400,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to process the collection.

Before in-depth processing and planning could begin, six rooms worth of materials had to be sorted, cleaned, categorized and boxed, Pendergraph stated. Payments covered rent and insurance on the processing location, an archival contractor, staff, equipment, shelving and acid-free containers, along with consulting and training fees, he said.

Despite Pendergraph’s defense of the expenditures, a county memo dated July 1, 2010, stated that the remaining amount of SPLOST funds available would be reduced by about $60,000 for what appeared to be a “conflict of interest.”

Pendegraph said Monday the foundation is now negotiating to transfer ownership of the materials to Savannah and house the materials in the city’s planned cultural arts center.

Sean Brandon, Savannah’s management services bureau chief, said the arts center is being considered as a possible location for the collection, although other options are also being considered.

The city recently sent the foundation a draft agreement to transfer the deed, although nothing has been finalized, Brandon said.

The collection was previously stored at Law’s house at 710 W. Victory Drive before the materials were relocated to the city building. The foundation entered a three-year lease agreement with the city in 2005 to house the materials for about $16,000 a year.

Since the foundation ran out of funds, the city has stopped charging the organization rent, Brandon said.

“Our interest isn’t to make money on the site,” he said. “Our interest is making sure the archive is secure and everyone has access to it.”

Both Brandon and Hart said they recently learned that the Georgia Historical Society has expressed interest in housing the collection, an interest confirmed Thursday by foundation board member George Bowen.

Todd Groce, president and chief executive officer of the historical society, could not reached for comment.

Mayor Edna Jackson, who described Law as her mentor, said her main wish is to see that the collection is put somewhere accessible to the general public.

“I want to make sure wherever it is going, it represents a man that gave so much to this community,” Jackson said. “We have to make sure his dignity is maintained.”

ABOUT W.W. LAW

Westley Wallace Law was a Savannah native who fought for civil rights for decades, before broadening his efforts to include the preservation of black history and historic sites.

His efforts led to the Beach Institute and the King-Tisdell Cottage on Savannah’s eastside and the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

He worked as a letter carrier and served as president of the Savannah branch of the NAACP for 26 years prior to his death at age 79 in 2002.

THE COLLECTION AT A GLANCE

The W.W. Law collection includes more than a half-century of NAACP documents, including correspondence with major regional and international figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Roy Wilkins, Thurgood Marshall and Daisy Bates of Little Rock Nine fame.

The collection also includes correspondence with local and state elected officials such as segregationist Gov. Lester Maddox and former President Jimmy Carter.

As a whole, the collection includes an assortment of rare 19th-century periodicals, 5,000 books, including numerous signed first editions, several hundred pieces of original art, signed limited-edition prints and popular iconic reproductions.